Edward C. Malesic
Edward Charles Malesic was born August 14, 1960, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with paternal roots in the Bela Krajina region of Slovenia. He studied biology at Lebanon Valley College, then entered the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, earning a bachelor's in philosophy (1983) and a Master of Divinity (1987). He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Harrisburg on May 30, 1987, and later earned a Licentiate in Canon Law from the Catholic University of America.
In Harrisburg he served in canon-law/tribunal roles, as a college campus minister, and as a pastor. Pope Francis appointed him the fifth Bishop of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 2015; he was ordained and installed on July 13, 2015. He led Greensburg for five years.
On July 16, 2020, Pope Francis named him the 12th Bishop of Cleveland; he was installed on September 14, 2020, and remains the Ordinary of Cleveland as of mid-2026. His tenure is marked by a comparatively accommodating handling of Traditionis Custodes: he welcomed the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to the diocese, erected a diocesan shrine for the traditional liturgy, and twice petitioned Rome to keep diocesan Latin Masses alive, even as he carried out the reductions the motu proprio required.
Judged strictly by deeds, Bishop Malesic is one of the more accommodating American ordinaries under Traditionis Custodes. Where many bishops used the motu proprio to extinguish the old rite outright, Malesic did the opposite of the minimum: in July 2023 he invited the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest into the diocese and, by formal decree (Prot. N. 540/2023, dated July 28, 2023), erected the historic St. Elizabeth of Hungary church as a diocesan shrine explicitly dedicated to worship 'according to the 1962 Missale Romanum.' Founding a shrine for the traditional liturgy is an affirmative act of preservation, not mere toleration.
He has also gone to Rome on the faithful's behalf. When the grace period for the diocese's remaining diocesan Latin Masses ran out in 2025, Malesic petitioned the Holy See and secured a two-year extension, confirmed in October 2025, allowing St. Stephen in Cleveland and St. Mary in Akron to continue the 1962 Mass in parish churches through roughly 2027. His communications director publicly confirmed the extension.
The record is not unmixed. In obedience to Traditionis Custodes he did carry out the November 2023 reduction that stripped the TLM from several parishes (Immaculate Conception, Our Lady Queen of Peace, St. Rocco, Sacred Heart), and the surviving diocesan Masses reportedly run under real limits -- one per week and unadvertised. The 2025 Vatican II altar episode at St. Elizabeth was a black eye, though the damage was done by the ICKSP community and the diocese ordered the restoration. On balance, within the cage Rome built, Malesic has consistently chosen the most preserving option available -- welcoming a traditional institute, founding a shrine, and repeatedly pleading the faithful's case to the Holy See. That is the conduct of a friend of the old rite acting under obedience, not an adversary.